Contents

Overview

Chairman Drek was planning to create a planet for his race, the Blarg, by breaking off a large quantity of other surrounding planets and using them to form the new Blarg planet, showing no concern to the people of these doomed planets. To stop him, Ratchet had to try to contact Captain Qwark, the greatest hero the galaxy had ever known.

Gameplay

Ratchet & Clank was one of the first games to shake up the platformer genre by focusing not only on making difficult jumps, but also on action and shooting gameplay. In addition to shooting, the game includes space dogfights, hoverboard races, Grindboot rails, Magneboot sections, Giant Clank battles, and Swingshot courses. Ratchet & Clank was one of the few platforming games at that time with an inventory system and more shooting-styled gameplay, which inspired more video-game companies to make more third person shooting / platforming games.

Plot

The story began on a backwater planet in the Solanagalaxy, known as Veldin. Ratchet was initially shown working on a space ship. Upon checking what else was needed via "HelpDesk", he sadly discovered that he needed a robotic ignition system. Meanwhile, at a robot manufacturing plant elsewhere in the galaxy, a robot creating Sentry-bots seemingly made an error and accidentally created a small, inferior robot, XJ-0461. Upon seeing an Infobot revealing Chairman Drek's plans to create a new planet by harvesting parts of other planets in the galaxy, he fled the planet. Sentry-bots followed him, however, and he was shot down over Veldin. Ratchet, curious about the crash, explored his way through the planet and discovered an unconscious Clank. Realizing that Clank had the robotic ignition system he needed, Ratchet began working on his ship again. Clank awoke and explained the situation at hand, and struck a deal with the Lombax: If Clank would start his ship, Ratchet agreed to help Clank locate Captain Qwark to save the galaxy from Drek. After exploring different planets which Drek attacked such as Novalis and Eudora, they were able to track down and meet Captain Qwark on Rilgar. Unbeknownst to the duo, Qwark was actually working for Drek, and upon winning a Hoverboard Race, Qwark tricked them into heading blindly into his trap on planet Umbris. Captain Qwark explained his betrayal to them upon their completion of this obstacle/death course and left Ratchet and Clank to fight a Blargian Snagglebeast. Upon defeating the Snagglebeast, the two used a new ship and flew to save the warring planet of Batalia. Ratchet vowed to gain revenge on his former idol, while Clank tried to convince him that Drek was the bigger issue. Ratchet's anger began to subside as the duo came to the realization that Drek planned to not only harvest planets, but entirely destroy another one using the PlanetBuster Maximus for the sake of placing his new planet in the same orbit. Ratchet and Clank soon headed went to Drek's Gemlik Moonbase, where Ratchet was able to enact his revenge on Qwark (Qwark, however, survived the loss and crash-landed on Oltanis.) Drek modified his plan to destroy Veldin so that the new Blarg planet could take its place, specifically to anger Ratchet even more. After defeating Drek in a final showdown on Veldin, they turned the Deplanetizer back at the Blarg Planet, destroying it and killing Drek. The two became instant celebrities and were featured on many magazine covers and Holovision shows. They settled on Veldin to relax, not knowing that their next adventure was right around the corner.

Limited edition poster

Like each game that followed it, Ratchet & Clank had its own limited edition game poster before its release. The poster shows Ratchet shredding from the edge of a rail and Clank standing by.

Galaxies

Organizations

Critical reaction

Before its release, GameSpot received two preview builds of Ratchet & Clank.[10] After previewing it for the second time, GameSpot described "excellent graphics, varied gameplay, and tight control(s)".[11] IGN had similar views after seeing it in action at E3 2002, stating it would rival Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter.[12]

At release, Ratchet & Clank was met with positive reviews and scores, earning an 88 out of 100 at Metacritic. It was praised for its high quality graphics and wide range of weapons and gadgets.[13] Some criticisms were aimed at the story and characters, GameSpy feeling that Ratchet was an unlikeable main character and that the game became predictable, boring and "just bland".[13] GameSpot on the other hand felt that the game, although it was easier than others at the time, had enough variety that kept the player interested and moving at a good pace.

Movie

On 23 April, 2013 it was announced that a Ratchet & Clank movie was to be made for release in 2015. The movie will be based on the origin of Ratchet and Clank covering a similar story to the original Ratchet & Clank video game but in greater detail and with deeper meaning.[14]

Trivia

Promo Image

According to the magazine promo image, Ratchet & Clank apparently took place in the year 5354, and the months that appeared on the magazine were called Octogus. This implies that the galaxy's calendar is different than ours.[15]

In Ratchet & Clank, one of the skill points was named "Going Commando", which would become the name of the second installment in the franchise.

When the disc first loads up, if you don't press start to load or create a game, after a short while a demo will play. After one finishes, another one will follow after the same amount of time. There were 3 demos.

This is the first game released by Insomniac Games after its departure from the Spyro series. However, a game, known as I5, was in production for months before the concept of Ratchet & Clank, but it was ultimately cancelled, opening the doors for this franchise.

Ratchet & Clank was not built using the engine from Jak and Daxter, contrary to popular belief. It was actually built using its own engine, and was aided by the engine from the 2001 racing game Kinetica.[16][17]